Seven-year-old child is arrested after 'intentionally' setting fire to family home in West Virginia

hollydolly

hollydolly

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A seven-year-old child has been arrested and charged with first degree arson after 'intentionally' setting fire to their family home.

The child set the fire while their parents slept inside the home in Jackson County, West Virginia, on Wednesday morning.

Crews responded at about noon to reports of a house fire in the Elizabeth area.

The fire caused minor burn injuries to two people, according to Chief Deputy State Fire Marshal Robert Bailey, but everyone made it out of the home alive.

Officials shared a photo from the scene that appeared to show the property engulfed in flames.

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The juvenile was taken into custody Wednesday evening after the blaze.

The West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the fire and said no further information will be released yet due to the sensitive nature of the case.

Charges may be brought against children by citation or by criminal complaint in West Virginia.
 

Children play with matches sometimes and sometimes it gets out of hand. This family was not lucky and didn't catch it before the house burned down. Unless the child is a sociopath he or she will have to live with it the rest of their life
 
hearlady said:
Children play with matches sometimes and sometimes it gets out of hand. This family was not lucky and didn't catch it before the house burned down. Unless the child is a sociopath he or she will have to live with it the rest of their life
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WE lived in a post war prefabricated house when I was little and they were basically made from matchsticks , asbestos and wadding.. my mother was always talking about her fear of fire in that house.. and one day she went out shopping .. leaving me age 7 and my younger siblings alone in the house. My younger brother got a hold of matches and set alight to the lace curtains on the front door... :eek: fortunately the only thing that saved us was that the door was made of metal and thick frosted glass... and fire burned out after it had taken seconds to burn the curtain...otherwise if he'd started it in a bedroom or the livingroom she'd have come home to 4 dead kids...
 
He was probably arrested before a court authorization is my guess.

WV Juvenile Rule 6:

(b) Custody Without a Court Order. Absent a court order, a juvenile may be taken into custody by a law-enforcement officer only if one of the following conditions exists:
(1) grounds exist for the arrest of an adult in identical circumstances;
(2) emergency conditions exist which, in the judgment of the officer, pose imminent danger to the health, safety, and welfare of the juvenile;
(3) the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the juvenile has left the care of his or her parents or guardians without consent, and the health, safety, and welfare of the juvenile is endangered;
(4) the juvenile is a fugitive from a lawful custody or commitment order of a juvenile court;
(5) the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the juvenile to have been driving a motor vehicle with any amount of alcohol in his or her blood; or
(6) the juvenile is the named respondent in an emergency protective order issued pursuant to West Virginia Code § 48-27-403, and the individual filing the petition for the emergency protective order is the juvenile's parent or legal guardian.
(c) Prompt Presentment Upon Custody. Upon taking a juvenile into custody with or without a court order under one of the circumstances specified in this rule, the law-enforcement officer shall immediately bring the juvenile before the circuit or magistrate court for a detention or placement hearing.
W. Va. R. Juve. Proc. 6
 
Arson is the intentional setting of fires. Playing with matches is not intentional. I don't believe the police think the fire was an accident. A 7 year old setting an intentional housefire, while his patents are sleeping is a huge waving red flag. This kid may have tried to kill his family. I wonder that this kid may already have a history of bed wetting, and animal torture. I fear we will hear his name again, associated with tragedy.
 
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Agree if he was playing with matches - and he's at the age where that's not uncommon - it's not a crime. And even if he did "intentionally" set the fire, seven year olds have a very limited concept of the repercussions of such an action, which is why children are rarely arrested.

This may be a case of an overeager police department and a family that could use some counseling.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I wonder that this kid may already have a history of bed wetting,
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One of my children wet the bed until about age 11. The doctors attributed it to very deep sleep patterns and said it would almost certainly stop when puberty kicked in, which is exactly what happened.

Never was it suggested to me that this might be due to psychological issues - and indeed it wasn't.
 
StarSong said:
One of my children wet the bed until about age 11. The doctors attributed it to very deep sleep patterns and said it would almost certainly stop when puberty kicked in, which is exactly what happened.

Never was it suggested to me that this might be due to psychological issues - and indeed it wasn't.
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Bedwetting by itself is not an indication of any mental issues. It's well known that killer psychopaths, serial killers, share a history of bedwetting, arson, and animal torture- all three. I have no idea what bedwetting has to do with a serial killer, but almost all serial killers have a history of all three behaviors.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Arson is the intentional setting of fires. Playing with matches is not intentional. I don't believe the police think the fire was an accident. A 7 year old setting an intentional housefire, while his patents are sleeping is a huge waving red flag. This kid may have tried to kill his family. I wonder that this kid may already have a history of bed wetting, and animal torture. I fear we will hear his name again, associated with tragedy.
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it was Mid-day... perhaps the child was bored left alone while his parents slept.. perhaps he had no toys, perhas he was just angry at them and wanted their attention not realising the devastation that would come with setting a fire..
 
Think this maybe reported with slant???
i remember especially young children police would put in back of car or even ( smaller town) take them in .... MADE a Huge impression on kids that what they did was SERIOUS enough that it would be a glimpse of their future ......

get them when they are young............ to derail criminal type ideas .......... even give the parents a wake up call literally.
 
Jeni said:
Think this maybe reported with slant???
i remember especially young children police would put in back of car or even ( smaller town) take them in .... MADE a Huge impression on kids that what they did was SERIOUS enough that it would be a glimpse of their future ......

get them when they are young............ to derail criminal type ideas .......... even give the parents a wake up call literally.
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I had it happen to me at exactly this age... my mother told me to take a penny from her purse for school, and I accidentally took a shilling.. without realising I'd taken the wrong coin, wasn't paying attention. When I got to school instead of putting it back in my pocket to take home as I should have, I spent it on sweets.. ( 12 pennies in a shilling ).. but in my young innocence I took the sweets home. Of course my mother knew where they'd come from and immediately marched me down to the police station, where the uniformed desk sergeant put me in a cell.. ( probably only a couple of minutes ).. but I can still see what seemed like a Giant man looking down at me and telling me that's where I'd stay if I did it again.... however he was very kindly, and as we were leaving he called me back , and gave me a pack of dolly mixtures.. :D
 
Many people mentioned plausible explanations but it could also be that the child is severely disturbed. I had a 5 year old on my caseload that was extremely abused and tried to start a fire in a caseworker’s car while she was driving. After that we always put him in the front seat.

He asked me to run his mom over when she walked in front of my car. It was her fault that he was so disturbed. I wouldn’t have been willing to sleep in a house with him in it.
 
StarSong said:
One of my children wet the bed until about age 11. The doctors attributed it to very deep sleep patterns and said it would almost certainly stop when puberty kicked in, which is exactly what happened.

Never was it suggested to me that this might be due to psychological issues - and indeed it wasn't.
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I did until about age seven when my parents purchased a fluid sensitive bed pad with an alarm to wake me which stopped the problem after only a few times. My issue was intense dreaming. I can remember dreaming vividly that I knew I had to go, walked through the house or other buildings to the toilet and dreamed I was actually sitting on it when the accidents occurred.
 
WV law defines Arson's Mens Rea, (culpable mental state), as carried out, being Wilful and Malicious. I could not find any Statutory definitions, (but probably are), so ordinary or common meanings apply.
 
Again, this kid was legally charged with arson -a felony criminal offense. That means there was evidence of intent to start a fire. That rules out mischief. And arson, at an early age is characteristic of psychopathy. This is troubled kid.
 
I think more details need to be known before leaping to conclusions. Was the fire set with the intention of burning down the house and maybe killing his parents? (Who apparently survived). Was he/she trying to build a bonfire, not understanding how fire can spread? Could the kid have been what they used to call "retarded?"

Or, yes, it could have been the deliberate act of a young psychopath. Was there a history with this kid before? Why was the child unsupervised while the parents were asleep at noon?

Couldn't find much by googling this story, as it says they are releasing very little information due to the "sensitive" nature of the investigation, whatever that means. It does say that the stepfather had previously been charged with child abuse.
 
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Sunny said:
I think more details need to be known before leaping to conclusions. Was the fire set with the intention of burning down the house and maybe killing his parents? (Who apparently survived). Was he/she trying to build a bonfire, not understanding how fire can spread? Could the kid have been what they used to call "retarded?"

Or, yes, it could have been the deliberate act of a young psychopath. Was there a history with this kid before? Why was the child unsupervised while the parents were asleep at noon?

Couldn't find much by googling this story, as it says they are releasing very little information due to the "sensitive" nature of the investigation, whatever that means. It does say that the stepfather had previously been charged with child abuse.
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fuzzybuddy said:
Again, this kid was legally charged with arson -a felony criminal offense. That means there was evidence of intent to start a fire. That rules out mischief. And arson, at an early age is characteristic of psychopathy. This is troubled kid.
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If there's been a pattern of abuse by his step-father and his mother isn't stopping it, the child may have thought this was his only way out of a terrible situation. Seven year olds are essentially powerless against adults in general and their parents in particular.

Ask any child who was abused by a parent/step-parent and you will hear of long hours spent desperately trying to think of ways to make that parent disappear, or find a safe place to run to where they won't be brought back, or of committing suicide.

It doesn't make this child a psychopath, it makes him a kid who needs protection, counseling, and family intervention. And it makes his step-father a criminal.
 
It's hard to believe cops would arrest a 7 year old, and charge him with arson, which by definition is the felonious intentional setting of a fire, if they didn't have evidence of that. What that evidence is remains unknown to us, and so does his family dynamics.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
It's hard to believe cops would arrest a 7 year old, and charge him with arson, which by definition is the felonious intentional setting of a fire, if they didn't have evidence of that. What that evidence is remains unknown to us, and so does his family dynamics.
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The article said the kid was "arrested".. He may have just been taken into "protective custody" pursuant to the Juvenile Rules, bypassing a chargeable offense for the time being!
 

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